I am not fond of audiobooks, but I decided to indulge myself after listening to a sample because Karissa Vacker’s voice was the right amount of sensory input, despite similarities to the Texan accent.

Reason? I wanted to be able to read while laying down, perhaps even with my eyes closed. I’m also finding that I can use audiobooks to read along with some books, and it helps the books seem shorter overall.

‘Cause I’m a person who says the words she reads in her head, and when I attempt not to, I wind up having to reread all that which I did not say in my head.

Not sure if this is an autistic thing or actual reader struggle.

Unhelpful is the fact that I’m hard of hearing, hence my resistance to audiobooks in the first place. Add that with my difficulty processing verbal information — which is an autism thing — and audiobooks are not, as I often put it, Jane-friendly.

Because they’re not like vocal music, repetitive with their chorus and overplayed by music stations; because books seldom repeat information — and why would we want to read (with our eyes or our ears) the same thing over and over again like we’re two-year-old masters of selective hearing?

The Rule of One by Ashley Saunders, Leslie Saunders
Narrated by Karissa Vacker
Series: The Rule of One #1
Published by Skyscape on 1 October, 2018
Genre: Dystopian, Fiction, Science fiction, Twins, Young adult
# pages: 258
Source: Amazon
Goodreads
Rating: ★★★★

One child, one nation: this is the way of a near-future US. Country leaders are notorious for building walls for one of two reasons: a) to keep people out or b) to keep citizens from leaving. Twins Ava and Mira, however, may just upend that all.

Eerily familiar United States

The authors are twins. I surmise they alternated between writing the chapters, in that one twin was Ava and the other was Mira. I did notice the difference between each of their voices, when it counted; due to the context, individuality was a taboo. To survive, Mira had to mirror Ava to a T.

I quite enjoyed witnessing their individual character development, although I favored Mira’s more. Since Ava was the primary twin, she was thus the primary identity — so she had an inkling of who she was and didn’t need to figure it out. Rather, she needed to learn how to get over herself and accept that Mira was her own person.

I’m not so much a fan of present tense, but it works. I’m finding I haven’t much issue if the present tense works — which is rare for me, despite its popularity.

I really felt like I was one of the twins, on the run in hopes of survival.

This hits nearly all my bookish needs. Regarding dystopian books, it exceeds my expectations. Some scenes struggle with verbosity, but the story is so relevant to American politics today that it’s eerily realistic — so the verbosity is thus forgiven.